


Reeds by the River

by purgtory (orphan_account)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Dean Winchester, Case Fic, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Minor Character Death, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 11:36:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7756270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/purgtory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few months after Sam has left for Stanford, Dean and John Winchester find themselves in Wilmar, Nebraska, where a monster has begun to slice victims to death, always shooting into the ceiling above them. The men fight to save the town's children, and Dean finds himself torn between hunting and finding a new life with someone he loves.<br/>Meanwhile in 2016, Sam and Cas dig up the shadows of an unfinished case, and drag Dean back to one town that still haunts him at night. The team soon discover that the curious case of Wilmar, Nebraska was never what they thought it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reeds by the River

The slightest breath whispered between the buildings of Callahan Elementary School. Stray leaves floated gently along the paths, coming to rest at the foot of the grade 2 block. The state-approved landscape of smooth brick and fake grass was eerily quiet for a Wednesday afternoon. With not a cloud in the sky, the majority of the children contained in the classrooms ached to be playing tag or basketball outside. Yet the clocks (the ones that worked, at least) were going to take at least ten more minutes to tick their way to home time.

Elizabeth Nelson of class 2C had not been listening to her teacher for some time. The last time she heard, Ms Millar had been reading a story about a particularly unfriendly bear. Despite having many people approaching him with offerings of honey and friendship, the bear had refused to allow anyone into his cave. Elizabeth then proceeded to ponder what may have happened to the bear for him to feel the need to remain alone. Whilst the rest of the class heard about Mr Bobby Bear’s journey to happiness, the girl explored the idea that perhaps Mr Bear simply did not like people. She definitely could not blame him, for most people in Elizabeth Nelson’s limited experience were either awfully mean or awfully boring.

As she continued to ponder, Elizabeth’s gaze was drawn to the world outside the window that she sat next to. It occurred to her that places, like people, could also be boring or mean. After some thought, she decided that places could not, in fact, be mean. Her reasoning was that places were not people, and that it was people that made a place boring or mean. That it just what people do. And that is why the best places are the lonely ones.

The dirty array of playground equipment, canteen wrappers and brightly coloured backpacks was undoubtedly a boring place for Miss Elizabeth Nelson.

That Wednesday afternoon was by no means the first day that she had stared unthinkingly out of her classroom window as the end of school approached. Of several things she was quite sure – most of the mothers and fathers she saw walking or driving to escort their children home at the end of the day were boring people, Ella Kennedy’s mother fancied Hugo Lee’s father. The people with younger children at their heels couldn’t wait until all of their children went to school five days a week. That lady who always wore a blue shirt doesn’t really enjoy picking her son up each day. The other woman with the tiny dog cared more about that animal than she cared about her daughter (who was in the grade below Elizabeth). Julia Cook’s mother was a very lonely woman.

Being so accustomed to seeing a very similar scene every time, Elizabeth almost did not notice an unusual woman standing fairly close to the school gate. The woman could not have been much younger than her own mother, and sported a similar below-shoulder haircut. The woman had the excess weight typical for middle-aged mothers, along with the oversized sunglasses and impatient, eternally irritated demeanour. The woman, Elizabeth observed, plain jeans and a black shirt. Nothing extraordinary, but generally not the typical attire for a standard housewife.

Elizabeth assumed that the woman must be new to the area, and was simply taking a look at the local school. That was, until Elizabeth realised that the woman was not offhandedly looking – she was peering. Searching. As far as Elizabeth new, no new students had started recently, so the woman surely couldn’t be looking for her own child. A babysitter perhaps?

Elizabeth had trained her brain to work well on autopilot very well, and as a result was able to redirect her attention to the blackboard at the front. _Mr Bobby Bear_ was sitting on Ms Millar’s desk. Strangely, Elizabeth did not really lament missing the ending of the book, which she guessed involved Mr Bear learning to make friends and  living happily ever after.

The girl grasped her homework folder and pushed in her chair with the rest of the class. She recited “Good afternoon, Ms Millar,” in the characteristic monotone, along with the rest of the class. She walk-ran to the door and pushed her way out to retrieve her small green backpack. This backpack contained a great many of Elizabeth’s worldly possessions, among which were her cherished orange-and-pink bouncy ball and plastic charm bracelet. She hoisted it onto her shoulders and adjusted the straps so that they were comfortable. Eager to flee, Elizabeth promptly began to make her way to the parking lot where her mother would undoubtedly be waiting.

And as she walked, the girl failed to notice the gaze of the strange woman following her as she skipped along.

Elizabeth wrenched open the car door and hopped into the passenger seat, proceeding to stow her backpack between her legs and reach for her seatbelt. At that point, her mother took a deep breath and lowered her newspaper, smiling brightly at her daughter. If any ordinary person had seen Victoria Nelson smiling that day, they could have thought that all was perfectly fine in that woman’s world. However, to the trained eye, the fondness in that mother’s smile was tinted with but the slightest pinch of sadness. Elizabeth had noticed it a long time ago, but had given up on speculating the reason for it a small while afterwards.

“Hey, sweetie! How was your day?”

“It was good, although I didn’t like the book Ms Millar read us.”

“Oh yeah? How come?”

“It was about a bear who couldn’t be happy until he had lots of friends. But I think people can be happy without lots and lots of friends. Like us! We’re happy.”

The sadness bled a little more into Victoria Nelson’s eyes as she replied “Yes, Lizzie-boo, we’re _very_ happy!”

Satisfied, Elizabeth returned to staring out the window, pondering. But as her mother started their run-down car and drove it through the parking lot, her eyes fell on an unfamiliar woman standing right next to the school gate. Victoria started when she realised…

The woman was looking right at her.

And Victoria Nelson knew exactly who it was.

This woman was not a kettle of fish anyone would want to open. Anyone who was in any way connected to the local grapevine heard stories about the crazy woman that wrapped Craig round her pinkie finger. Goodness knows why, as the stories also say that her yelling can be heard at all hours of the day and night from their house. Why that poor man fell for her is anyone’s guess. They say she hits him, and yet she’s obsessed with him. Comes home drunk some nights, tries to break into her own house. At least, that’s what Victoria heard from their neighbours, the Henderson’s, when she last passed them on her morning walk. That woman is bag-of-cats crazy, they said. Wouldn’t touch her with a six-foot pole, they said.

She’s a psycho, they said.

And as Victoria Nelson drove away from her daughter’s elementary school, she saw the woman still looking in the rear-view mirror.

And she believed them.

* * *

 The home where Elizabeth and Victoria Nelson lived was a small, modest house with an unkempt back garden. It was messy – there were papers everywhere, pots and pans with no permanent cupboard, discarded toys from years ago stuffed behind sofas and between bookshelves. The floor under the grey carpet creaked and groaned if it didn’t like the temperature. There were dents in the walls and chips in the paint. Leaks in the roof, and the tiles were stained.

Elizabeth often pretended that she loved it all, because that made her mother happy. And she wasn’t completely lying. The house was nice, and it was theirs. But it could have been bigger. Cleaner. Nicer.

That was why little Elizabeth spent a significant amount of time in the garden. Well, her garden. She would read, or run around, or simply sit and do some more of that pondering she was so fond of. Sometimes she would draw, or maybe play with some old but much-loved toys. Whatever she did, she did it alone. It was very much Elizabeth’s garden.

It’s not that Elizabeth was a lonely child. When the times rolled round, she greatly enjoyed playing with other children. But she also enjoyed being with herself. She always thought there was something vastly exciting about being alone with oneself.

On this particular Wednesday, Elizabeth decided to read down at the back of the garden, in the gloom of the overgrowth. She was reading one of her favourite – The Little Princess – for the seventh time. Losing herself in the glorious story, hours passed as the little girl sat, back to the house, losing herself in a better world.

She was so lost, in fact, that she did not hear the gentle thud of footsteps until they were too close. Far too close. And they could not belong to her mother, because this was Elizabeth’s garden.

Scared stiff, the girl stayed very quiet and pretended to keep reading her book. She was imagining. Just imagining. It wasn’t real.

Until it was.

“Hello, little girl.”

It was undoubtedly the strange woman from the school gate. She had the same clothes, and the same sunglasses. But now the woman held the glasses in one hand, and looked directly into Elizabeth’s eyes as the girl very slowly turned around.

Elizabeth should have screamed. But she did not.

“H-hello. What…what are you doing in my garden?”

The woman smiled evilly, like a witch from a film. And her eyes smiled too, but not a happy kind of smile. Those were the kind of eyes that watched bad things happen. Those were the kind of eyes that belonged to a person who was mean.

**Author's Note:**

> The beginning of my first multi-chapter fic! What did everyone think?  
> Next chapter: In 2016, Sam comes across a particularly strange newspaper article, and goes to investigate, along with Dean and Cas.


End file.
